Terry Fox, The Labyrinth Scored for the Purrs of 11 Different
Cats, 1976, 9:03 Min.
Tape produced by Z.B:S:, Fort Edward, New York. Sound engineer:
Bob Bilecki
"The labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral is made of blue and white
stones set into the stone floor of the cathedral. It is a unicursal
path winding in 34 turns through 11 concentric rings to the center.
It is 12m 87 in diameter and has 552 steps following its course
from the entrance to the center. This labyrinth formed the blueprint
for all my work from 1972 to 1978. I attempted to make sound from
it a few times. Two examples are 'The Labyrinth Scored for the Purrs
of 11 Cats' and '552 Steps Through 11 Pairs of Strings'. For the
former, I recorded 8 continuous minutes of purring from 11 different
cats. They were then mixed to follow the exact path of the labyrinth
with one cat representing each of the 11 concentric rings, 10 seonds
of overlapping purrs to indicate each of the 34 turns. The tape
follows in stereo the path of the labyrinth with the center finally
represented by the simultaneous purring of all 11 cats.
(The other work '552 Steps Through 11 Pairs of Strings' was a performance
in my loft in San Francisco in which I stretched 11 pairs of piano
wires of 11 different thicknesses across the wooden floor of my
studio)" (Terry Fox in: Linkage. LP und Katalog, Kunstmuseum
Luzern, 1982).